Various ice dispenser designs have been proposed for refrigeration appliances such as commercial or home refrigerators and/or freezers. Some of these devices store ice prior to dispensing the ice to a user.
Generally, current ice dispensers store ice in a bucket or container prior to dispensing the ice. In such current designs, storage of ice in the bucket or container is needed due to the limited production capabilities of the ice dispenser's ice maker. For example, the ice maker generally produces small batches of ice and takes a significant amount of time to produce any particular batch of ice.
Despite such limited ice production capabilities, the storage of ice in the bucket or container allows the ice dispenser to collect and dispense a large amount of ice at any particular time or over a period of time. Thus, the storage of ice can allow the ice dispenser to meet user demands for more ice than the dispenser's ice maker can produce at any particular time. The storage of ice can also allow the dispenser to meet user demands for more ice over a given period of time than can be produced by the ice dispenser's ice maker during the same time period.
Certain conventional ice dispensers store ice in a bucket or container that is mounted inside a compartment of the refrigerator e.g., in a freezer compartment of the refrigerator. However, the bucket or container mounted inside the compartment may decrease the amount of storage space available in the compartment. In addition, the bucket or container mounted inside the compartment may be difficult to access by a user. For example, a user attempting to e.g., manually collect ice from the container or to determine the amount of ice in the container may be prevented from doing so by items stored in the compartment. The location of the container in the freezer compartment may make access difficult.
In addition, certain conventional ice dispensers store ice in a bucket or container having a hole or other opening that allows ice to flow out of the bucket or container to a user. Thus, in certain conventional ice dispensers, gravity may urge ice stored in the bucket or container to flow through a hole on a bottom wall of the bucket or container. However, ice stored for a long period of time may freeze together and impede the flow of ice through a hole, and, in addition, certain ice cube shapes are not conducive to flow through a hole.
Accordingly, new ice dispenser designs are needed that can increase the amount of storage space available in refrigerators, allow users to more readily access stored ice, and assist the flow of ice through the dispenser.